this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.

Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.

This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.

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[–] aspensmonster@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not, and this article goes into quite a few reasons why:

https://blog.brixit.nl/developers-are-lazy-thus-flatpak/

Sadly there's reality. The reality is to get away from the evil distributions the Flatpak creators have made... another distribution. It is not a particularly good distribution, it doesn't have a decent package manager. It doesn't have a system that makes it easy to do packaging. The developer interface is painfully shoehorned into Github workflows and it adds all the downsides of containerisation.

While the developers like to pretend real hard that Flatpak is not a distribution, it's still suspiciously close to one. It lacks a kernel and a few services and it lacks the standard Linux base directory specification but it's still a distribution you need to target. Instead of providing seperate packages with a package manager it provides a runtime that comes with a bunch of dependencies.

If you need a dependency that's not in the runtime there's no package manager to pull in that dependency. The solution is to also package the dependencies you need yourself and let the flatpak tooling build this into the flatpak of your application. So now instead of being the developer for your application you're also the maintainer of all the dependencies in this semi-distribution you're shipping under the disguise of an application. And one thing is for sure, I don't trust application developers to maintain dependencies.

Even if there weren't so many holes in the sandbox. This does not stop applications from doing more evil things that are not directly related to filesystem and daemon access. You want analytics on your users? Just requirest the internet permission and send off all the tracking data you want.

Developers are not supposed to be the ones packaging software so it's not hard at all. It's not your task to get your software in all the distributions, if your software is useful to people it tends to get pulled in.

Another issue is with end users of some of my Flatpaks. Flatpak does not deal well with software that communicates with actual hardware. A bunch of my software uses libusb to communicate with sepecific devices as a replacement for some Windows applications and Android apps I would otherwise need. The issue end users will run in to is that they first need to install the udev rules in their distribution to make sure Flatpak can access those USB devices. For the distribution packaged version of my software it Just Works(tm)

recently rebased from fedora to debian, and reinstalling apps through flathub was ridiculously easy because all the settings and data were preserved in /home. also flatpaks incorporate newer mesa than what comes with debian stable, so it's an easy way to stick with a stable distro but also be up-to-date in userspace.

[–] aadil@merv.news 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My experience with Flatpaks has been so stable and hassle-free that it motivated me to switch to Fedora Silverblue.

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Hell yes! Feeling futuristic.

[–] AnonTwo@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I first used it it felt like they were usually out of date or missing. But nowadays It seems like I can find like 90% of the apps I use as flatpaks, leaving packages mainly for backend and terminal stuff.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like them for convenience, I don't like them for customability, possibly just because I don't know enough about them.

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[–] jose423@lemmy.jgholistic.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like containerization for server applications, especially when running different services on one box. For desktop use, native libraries are stable and usually the applications being used are single instance. I don't see a point in running desktop apps in containers.

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[–] fugepe@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

almost all my apps are flatpaks

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice! May I ask what is your base system?

[–] fugepe@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] GustavoM@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unless they come up with something else that is not "Windowsfying" Linux with one-click installs... then nah, no thanks.

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, it seems like all this convergence of convenience is muddying the linux waters... then again it has never been that clean.

[–] GustavoM@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you can't see the possibilities behind automated tasks that you have no control in... then I'm afraid to say that talking to a nearby wall will be more fruitful than (even trying to) start a convo with you right now.

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